Japanese whalers' begin search for humpbacks

Posted by jossc — 19 November 2007 at 11:53am - Comments

A humpback breaching

The Japanese whaling fleet is at sea again, heading down to the Southern Ocean to begin its annual whale cull. And this year their plans are bigger than ever, targeting 1,000 cetaceans including 50 endangered fin whales, 935 minkes and, for the first time, 50 threatened humpbacks.

Once again this slaughter will be justified in terms of gathering 'scientific' data about whale populations, even though 18 years of this have yet to yield any concrete results. And once again the whale meat will end up being sold commercially in Japan, despite the tiny and declining market, and minimal demand from the rest of the world.

Whaling factory ship Nishin Maru leaving Shimonoseki harbourWhaling factory ship Nishin Maru leaving Shimonoseki harbour

Japan's concept of 'scientific' whaling has long been exposed as a scam. The IWC (International Whaling Commission), which regulates whaling worldwide, has said for years that the information gathered is not useful. Everything the whalers find out from harpooning whales can be learned by non-lethal means.

To demonstrate this, we recently undertook a joint project with two ocean research institutes to track the migratory behaviour of humpbacks (noted for having the most complex and beautiful songs of any cetaceans), by tagging and tracking them via GPS. You can see Google maps of their progress by visiting the Great Whale Trail, which will also be showing the whalers' progress as they head to Antarctic waters.

Our ship the Esperanza was standing by off the Japanese coast waiting for the whalers to leave their home port of Shimonoseki, and is now tracking the fleet as it begins the long journey south. We intend to monitor and record the whalers' activity, and intervene as often as possible to limit the number of whales they're able to kill. This senseless slaughter must be stopped.

You can get regular reports of the Esperanza's progress by following the crew's weblog, and by checking out the live webcam.

What you can do

As Greenpeace Japan showed in their poll last year 2/3 of the Japanese people oppose whaling on the high seas. We agree with THEM. But it’s a small amount of people with the Japanese Government, especially the Fisheries Agency who are keeping the industry alive – at great cost to the Japanese tax-payers.

I know that governments don’t always reflect what their people want (and speaking from the UK, I do know!) – so let’s not target the ordinary people in Japan by boycotts and anti-Japanese sentiment.

Our countries need to make this a political issue at the highest possible levels, and our governments need to hold the Japanese Government to account for flouting international agreements on whaling. But at the same time the Japanese people should be asking why their taxes are supporting an industry they don’t want or need.

Let’s support our Japanese friends and hopefully together we can end whaling.

Willie,
Oceans Campaign, GPUK

Hi Pete

We've laid out our position on this several times, including in this letter to Paul Watson. As you say, let's concentrate on stopping the whaling.

Cheers,

Bex
gpuk

As Greenpeace Japan showed in their poll last year 2/3 of the Japanese people oppose whaling on the high seas. We agree with THEM. But it’s a small amount of people with the Japanese Government, especially the Fisheries Agency who are keeping the industry alive – at great cost to the Japanese tax-payers. I know that governments don’t always reflect what their people want (and speaking from the UK, I do know!) – so let’s not target the ordinary people in Japan by boycotts and anti-Japanese sentiment. Our countries need to make this a political issue at the highest possible levels, and our governments need to hold the Japanese Government to account for flouting international agreements on whaling. But at the same time the Japanese people should be asking why their taxes are supporting an industry they don’t want or need. Let’s support our Japanese friends and hopefully together we can end whaling. Willie, Oceans Campaign, GPUK

Hi Pete We've laid out our position on this several times, including in this letter to Paul Watson. As you say, let's concentrate on stopping the whaling. Cheers, Bex gpuk

About Joss

Bass player and backing vox in the four piece beat combo that is the UK Greenpeace Web Experience. In my 6 years here I've worked on almost every campaign and been fascinated by them all to varying degrees. Just now I'm working on Peace and Oceans - which means getting rid of our Trident nuclear weapons system and creating large marine reserves so that marine life can get some protection from overfishing.

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